Date: Mon, 15 Dec 1997 16:29:57 -0500 (EST)
From: Scott Lawrence <lawrence@agranat.com>
To: ietf-http-ext@w3.org
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.3.96.971215162748.30931A-200000@alice.agranat.com>
Subject: very rough outline for guidelines
This is mostly just a test of posting to the list, but it also gets this
into the archive...
INTERNET-DRAFT S. Lawrence
draft-ietf-httpext-guidelines Agranat Systems, Inc.
1 April 1990
Guidelines for Extentions to HTTP
Status of this Memo
This document is intended to become and Internet-Draft, at which time
this entire section will be replaced by the proper boilerplate text.
The revision you are looking at is:
$Id: draft-ietf-httpext-guidelines.ms,v 1.2 1997/12/15 21:26:48
lawrence Exp $
This is a work in progress; many sections below are empty and may
remain so until someone volunteers to produce a first draft for them.
The editor is actively soliciting volunteers. Discussion of this
document and related work is on the 'ietf-http-ext@w3.org' mailing
list; pointers are available at:
http://www.w3.org/Protocols/HTTP/ietf-ext-wg/
Abstract
The widespread use and apparently simple structure of HTTP
[HTTP10][HTTP11] have led to its adoption as a base for the
development of other protocols. Some of these other protocols
have chosen to be encapsulated entirely within HTTP, others have
chosen to extend HTTP in various ways, and some have used some
combination of these approaches. In the course of the definition
of HTTP/1.1 [HTTP11], much has been learned about the backward
compatibility and interoperability implications of various
mechanisms that might be chosen for extending HTTP; the purpose of
this memo is to capture some of that knowlege and make it
available to the protocol development community.
1. Use of HTTP Mechanisms for Extentions
1.1 Response Version
1.2 Response Status Codes
1.3 New Header Fields
1.3.1 New Header Values
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1.4 Use of the POST Method
1.5 New Transfer Encodings
Must be either self-terminating or must add a transfer length
indication somewhere (Content-Length doesn't do this).
2. Existing HTTP Extention Features
2.1 Usage of the Upgrade mechanism
3. Transport Related Extensions
3.1 Transport Requirements of HTTP
3.2 Issues for Transactional HTTP
3.3 Issues for Use of HTTP over Datagram Protocols
3.3.1 Issues for Use of a Transaction Identifier.
4. HTTP Management
4.1 Content Issues
Advice for content authors to ensure adequate description of
content to firewall administrators such as mime-type declarations
4.2 Operational Issues
Dealing with multiple chained proxies and cache architectures is
currently troublesome areas such as authentication and cache
control.
4.3 Cache Control
Advice for proper usage of cacheability headers
5. Security Considerations
6. IANA Considerations
Instructions and proceedures for any IANA or other registry
referenced here; pointer to 'Guidelines for Writing an IANA
Considerations Section in RFCs' [IANAreg]. .
7. References
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7. Author's Address
Scott Lawrence
Agranat Systems, Inc.
1345 Main St.
Waltham, MA 02154
Phone: (781) 893-7868
EMail: lawrence@agranat.com
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